


Akrasia

by amb-roses (overtture)



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling
Genre: Angst, Eventual Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Strangers to Partners, Strangers to Partners to Lovers, Suicidal Thoughts, and the slow burn is really slow so take that how you will, ask to tag, the romance isnt the focus of the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:00:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23423572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: a·kra·sia/əˈkrāZH(ē)ə/noun [PHILOSOPHY]the state of mind in which someone acts against their better judgment through weakness of will.Adam is looking for peace of mind. Jon is looking for stability. They both bear the weight of the past into the dawn of the future in AEW and wish to break free of it.Unfortunately, neither of them know what any of that actually means, and decide to overthrow the local assorted powers that be instead.
Relationships: Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley & Adam Page, Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley/Adam Page, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	Akrasia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon Moxley is reintroduced to a boy he knew in a past life, Hangman Adam Page is visited by the ghosts of the past, present, and future, not in that order, and a chessboard is cleared of its pieces and a new game set.
> 
> (Or, Hangman Adam Page's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, unrelenting, Murphy's Law week.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FGDHJFHDSJ I'M SORRY THIS IS SO POORLY PACED, WE JUST NEED TO GET THE DRAMA AND ANGST IN BEFORE WE CAN GET THE GOOD SHIT IN. I DONT WANT TO WORKSHOP AND REWRITE IT AGAIN, ITS TOO LONG, PLEASE TAKE IT 
> 
> time to crawl back into my hermit cave for a nap........ will edit this later........ enjoy

Dean Ambrose hadn’t been Dean Ambrose for very long when he first sees Adam Page on tape.

It’s old camcorder footage. Shaky, flaky, gritty, the whole nine yards. It’s a YouTube video, buried in the depths of results he’d painstakingly filtered through in search of late night entertainment.

Seth thought it was stupid, which really wanted to make him do it more often and a lot more obnoxiously. He said that scouring old footage wouldn’t determine anything in the present ring. That none of it was _useful_ or _representative of the present and future._

Yeah, well, Dean didn't think Seth was very useful, but didn't question _his_ methods or say it out loud, did he? _Nooo._

Plus, sometimes you'd watch a few matches, learn a few names, and they'd become important later on, years down the road. Sometimes passing lighthouses in the distance found their way back to you, and Dean knew that particularly well. 

Wrestling was weird and strange and horribly fate-inclined like that. 

Sometimes the off-hand name you heard a few times a year ago, five years ago, ends up being the asshole you orbit for the rest of your career, your life. 

Bestest of friends and bitterest of enemies. Back and forth on the clock's pendulum you swing.

So he digs through the gutters of old video sites and the deeper results of YouTube for videos with small view counts, and he watches and watches and watches.

He watches a boy's eyes shine like the moon, his smile crooked, big and bright like a miniature sun, stars mapping constellations over his faint, faded freckles the footage barely captures and shitty bar lighting muddies up.

He watches his lock up, the delicate balance of his weight and light foot placement, ready to move quickly, efficiently, sharply out of the way and trade speed for strength to capitalize on the sudden vulnerability left behind.

He watches the quick 1-2 of his climb to the top of the ropes and the gorgeous _twist_ of him through the air. He watches it three times, before he lets the match continue. 

He watches the sweat drip out of every inch of him, watches his face strain, lined and traced with passionate tension pulled taut, until he's forced to submit and he rolls slowly from the ring amidst the chaos surrounding the winner.

He watches the way the fire in his eyes, in his chest, in his very hands refuses to die under all the aching winces. 

He watches, and watches, and watches, and wonders. 

Wonders if maybe he’ll get a taste of the boy that had him on the edge of his bed, that held his full attention and desire for a full eight minutes and thirty-four seconds without remorse.

"Adam... Page," he rolls the name around on his tongue, the faintest taste of sunlight chasing it, his voice a whisper in the dark. _Adam Page. I hope one day I get to meet you._

* * *

Cody is ranting, fumbling around and rifling through his pockets for something as the sun sets outside their car, coasting down the interstate. His body aches with last night’s efforts, but the painkillers are slowly kicking in as he carefully leans off his tender left side and more towards the other man.

As soon as Cody pauses to take a breath, he butts in. “Hey, I did… good last night, right?”

He blinks back at him. “Yeah. Why?”

“Oh, it’s uh, it’s nothing.” He shook off the feeling of _wrongness_ and redirected his gaze down to his taped fingers _. A few more days,_ the fancy doctors had said dismissively. They'd offered fancy finger casts and bracers but he'd denied just so he could leave. Cody only wanted the _best_ quality care for him, but–

“Hey, Page…”

There’s a brush of lips at his temple and he startles sharply, nearly knocking into the retreating Nightmare. Cody smiles comfortingly. “You did _great_ last night, alright? With you at my side, we’ll sort this all out soon, okay? We’re in the right. We’re doing the right thing, even if it doesn’t seem like it from here.”

He raises his hand, brushes his fingers over the spot he’d kissed, giving him a smaller, more bashful grin and accepting the cigar he finally unveils from inside his suit jacket.

The sun is setting behind him. They won last night. Everything is… nearly okay. His world doesn’t seem nearly as fractured, as broken when he forces the worries from his mind and listens to Cody.

He lets the contentment wash away his pain, the looks on his old friend’s faces, the burning behind his eyes as Cody’s hand finds the back of his neck and squeezes.

Roughly. Fondly. Possessively. Affectionately.

He watches as the last sliver of sun is swallowed by the horizon over Cody's shoulder—

—His approach to the ring is slow and gentle.

It's like taming a startled horse if the ring was a ring, and he was the startled, the startler, and the calmer at the same time.

He wasn't scared of it, per se, but more of what it did. Of the people who wrestled within it. He'd been careful about picking this group of tourers, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

People who didn't recognize him, but would welcome him. People who weren't rough, but had a little bite to them. People who would hear him out, but wouldn't expect anything more than he was willing to give.

His terms were explicit and most laughed him out of the gym. _You can't have one foot in and one out, kid. You're either in or out. Pick one and stick with it._

The thing with picking one and sticking with it was that there was no room for growth, and all he did was grow and change. He was a survivor, he survived, it was what he _did._ Wrestling is hard to survive in. 

Wrestling is big and scary and a _commitment._ He's okay with sounding like a kid when he says that, because he knows how all-consuming it can be. Big is the only word that really works for the kid who thought he could keep his heart and soul out of it, as if that was possible.

It isn't. Not for him. Not for this profession. He's starting to realize that, now. Maybe it was fate, maybe it wasn't, but he didn't want to live a life so close and yet so far from something that called to the part of him he wanted to protect more than anything in this world. To something that makes that part of him want to _sing._

If it did that, then maybe he could give the ring a shot. If it did that, maybe it deserved a second chance. Maybe it deserved his courage.

So he approaches the ring, even when anxiety swells up in his chest, clogs his throat, caves in on his lungs and compresses.

It feels like a mile between him and the edge, even as his eyes tell him it's only six feet away. Still, he holds his breath like a child hoping not to be caught and creeps over. He lets his hands rest over the edge, skimming his fingers over the apron-top, smoothing the wrinkles and crinkles in the fabric when it bunches.

Nothing… happens. He knew nothing would, but it’s still kind of relieving. 

There was a very large chasm, an abyss he’d painstakingly carved between himself and the ring’s purpose despite being the kid who built them every week, and yet, standing before it, alone, he can’t help but toe the edge.

The tape is slightly textured when he runs his fingers over it. 

Not too smooth, not too rough. 

The ropes squeak softly as he steps up onto the bottom, holding the top. He lets himself sway a few times before using it to bounce up, balancing precariously as he lands on the unsteady top. He trusts the ring to hold, he put it together all on his lonesome this time, but he doesn’t entirely trust his own center of balance.

He stands up slowly, exhaling as he does. The canvas is far, standing atop the top rope. The floor is even farther. He studies the toes of his duct-taped boots until he knows he’s not going to immediately fall before finally looking up. A small bar stares back at him, two rows of miscellaneous chairs of all shapes and sizes crammed in around the corner carved out. 

His hat brushes the ceiling titles and there’s a suspicious stickiness to his hands from the barstool he’d sat at a few minutes before, but he can’t help his small smile. He can’t help but imagine, himself, a wrestler, another across this ring from him.

There’d be dozens, dozen, dozens of seats. Hundreds more. And he’d bounce off the bottom rope and onto the top and he’d _fly._ There would be no dusty ceiling to hit, but he would feel like he was going to scrape it with the height anyway, and the crowd would scream in recognition. He would put his face to the canvas as a planet screamed a three-count and he would roll off his opponent with a tired huff. 

He would hold a title, a prestigious title, an important title, up to the sky and watch all those lights flash and twinkle like stars off its surface. 

He’d sweep his cap off his head and into a little bow, and _definitely_ not cry, because there would’ve been no doubt he would win and it would be well-due. He would’ve outgrown tears like that by then. 

People would rush down, wet-eyes and wide smiles, to embrace him and press gentle hands to his aches. People would hold him wholeheartedly, shouting into him, holding him up, _holding him._

One would look at him, cup his jaw–

Adam’s foot slips when he leans a little too far to the side and he crashes from the ropes, pops himself in the mouth on the apron as he goes, and–

—wakes up on a completely different floor.

What? Wait. A dream. No, a revisited memory. Two revisited memories. 

How long had it been since he’d had a mashed up nightmare like that? A long, long while.

He lets the smoky remnants of it settle; He can still taste the new-car-smell, liquor, maple, old wood and tape adhesive on the air if he concentrates enough, despite the headache that slowly bubbles up.

That had been a long time ago.

He _is_ on the floor, though. That much is no dream, but it does explain some things. His body aches deep-seated in his bones, his muscles burning lowly. He’s bitten the inside of his cheek to high hell and his mouth is sticky-dry. His head _hurts._

The tile is cold and hard against his cheek and aching shoulder as he slowly pulls his arm out from underneath him and plants his palms down. It takes a second to drag the numb limbs into place, but surely, he peels his face from the floor with a cringe and sits up.

He is alone. There is no Cody, he wouldn’t want to see him if there was. There is no ring, there is no bar. There are just many, many lonely years in a crowd, and a dark locker room floor.

It's almost relieving.

His skin is grimy with long set-in sweat, a thready chill having crept in on him with only his trunks and half-tied boots left on him. The salt on his lips and metallic tang on his tongue as he gives his fuzzy teeth a rough swipe is comforting in its own way. All are accounted for, so that’s something.

Abruptly, his weak arms give out and he hisses sharply, choking back a howl as he clips the bench in front of him with the side of his chin, biting hard into his tongue.

_Fuck,_ he nearly bites his tongue a second time in pain. Fuck. _Fuck._

Page took a deep breath, swallowed the fresh trickle of copper back, and rests his forearms against the seat, carefully twitching his toes, rolling his ankles, bending his knees in slow flexes until the uncomfortable, tingling lack of blood flow is mostly over with and he slowly stands on shaky legs, wiping his mouth of the back of his wrist tape.

Was he hungover or concussed? Both? Being neither wasn’t likely, he was probably still drunk, and the headshot earlier in the night was definitely still chizzling at the inside of his skull.

He didn’t bring much anything with him, left it all at his hotel room so he could head straight back, but looking back, he probably shouldn’t have dodged the doctors. Then again, he could still recall the fight or flight that sent him barreling through the number of concerned faces and sprinting at full speed into the labyrinth of the inner-arena blindly. 

He thanks his past self quietly under his breath for remembering to extend the reservation for the night. Most of the locker room preferred to head out after the show and took their luggage with them so they could free their room up before night properly fell.

He had predicted his own mood swing, thankfully. It was easy. Omega, the Bucks, Rhodes, they all had _something_ to say each time they all found each other in the occasional hallway or locker room. The Bucks managed to smash every button he had with each passing conversation. 

Omega was on thin ice but ice nonetheless, though he had a more delicate touch. He was blind as a bat, but at least he had the decency to not press the wrong buttons _too_ hard. These days when interacting with him, he was gentle, softer in the way a younger Adam wished the Cleaner could’ve been. It makes some part of him tired and another part of him longing.

Page wasn’t his younger self now, though.

Kenny means well, but it was too late for that. It’s not his fault, either of theirs, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. Maybe it was unfair of him to put that on Kenny, his younger self’s need for leadership, for a careful guiding hand instead of a vice, cruel leather grip, but it was what it was and it was long past those days.

He doesn't even want to touch the mental mess that is Cody.

He’s just tired, now. He can already feel his inner turmoil start to stir, low in his gut as he loosely laces his boots enough to stay on and throws his half-folded street clothes over his shoulder and exiting.

The hall’s lights are out as he steps out and slowly closes the door behind him. A digital clock on the wall at the other end of the hall reads 4:17 AM in bright neon. He blinked a few times to let his eyes adjust to the lighter-dark of the hall and began a slow trek past empty crates and emptier halls towards the general direction of the exit. He knew he was on the third floor, at least.

He finds a kitchen on the second floor next to the stairwell, stealing a towel and wetting it with lukewarm water to wipe the worst of the grime and sweat from his skin before rinsing it and throwing it over his neck. It’s soothing, the water trickling over his shoulders and down his chest and back, even if it wets his clothes a little bit, bringing some life back into him with it. The weight of it on his neck grounds him a little more firmly in reality, sobering him up a bit.

A few minutes of careful stair navigation, he finds an exit without an immediate alarm he jiggles open and steps into the night. It’s still chilly, he notes, throwing his flannel loosely over a shoulder.

The air cools the wet towel as he lazily throws it over his head. He manages four steps before he hears a voice call out to his right.

“Wait!"

He grits his teeth as his feet instinctually jerk to a stop and forces them to continue a little faster.

“Hey, wait!”

God fucking damnit. Could he not have a walk of shame in peace? Ugh. It wasn’t worth trying to outrun them. He backtracks to the curb and flops down with a lack of the grace he usually has, leans against the rough brick of the building.

It’s Moxley. He looks a little out of breath, rougher around the edges than he had when Page had seen him earlier.

“Hi,” Moxley tries.

Page stares, eyebrows raised, eyes narrowed.

“Uh. Normally this is the part where you say hi back.”

Adam squints harder.

The other man blinks back. “Well alright, nevermind then. Mind if I sit, uh– sorry, do you have a name?”

Adam can’t hold back his sudden, incredulous _what?_ “Of course I do, asshole. It’s Hangman. We had a match together tonight, how did you forget?"

“I meant– fuck, I meant, do you have a _preferred_ name?”

Adam squints again. “… huh?”

“Damn,” Moxley says suddenly, after a too-long pause, looking him up and down appraisingly, “you’re _drunk-_ drunk, huh?”

It’s been just a few seconds if Adam’s inner clock is correct, and Moxley’s giving him verbal and mental whiplash. 

It takes him a moment to find the words, just out of reach enough to stall his response, long enough that the other man looks vaguely pitying as he tries to sort them into sentences on his tongue.

“No,” he manages carefully, minding his aching abdomen and nauseated stomach burning his throat as he leans back up into a slouched sitting position, “not an easy drunk. Takes a fuckin’ store to get me properly trashed. It’s just been a long…”

Day? Today was rough, sure, but it’s been more like a–

“Few years?” Moxley offers, finally sitting down next to him a few feet away.

There you go. Adam hums in agreement.

“Just tryin’ to sober up now, though,” he tacks on unhelpfully after a few seconds too long of silence.

“Had enough?”

“For tonight at least. My pride is finally winning over… Everything else. Figured I could stand to be a sober mess for a while.”

“Drunk mess doesn’t suit you,” he agrees.

“No?” He glances his way.

Moxley meets his gaze but doesn’t hold eye contact. “No. I’ll admit, you wear it a lot better than most I’ve met, but with you, it’s… you. But also, it’s…”

Adam swishes some more words around in his mouth. “Pitiful?”

“Mm,” he says, contemplative, “close enough.”

The honesty is as brutal as it is refreshing. The business was full of silver-tongued snakes. It was nice to be told the truth of the matter without pause, hesitation, tiptoeing.

Adam swallows a groan back as the initial dizziness returns and Moxley gives him another look in response. The other wrestler stays silent as he rides it out, though, and that more than anything makes bitterness bubble up. Moxley’s eyes dart from his wrist tape to his mouth to his eyes, and then sharply away when he realized Page was staring back. 

He can’t imagine what the other man sees. “What?”

“Is there anything I can do?” Moxley asks, an underlying tone he can’t place. He was genuine, his mind supplies. Whatever the looks and tone meant, it wasn’t malicious or disgusted, misguided pity now.

Adam considers it. “Unless you know a way to sober me up faster, no. Or want to pay for an Uber or Lyft.”

Moxley stares at him and then down at his loose fist in thought. His expression brightens as he turns back to him, raising it. “I could punch it out of you.”

What in the fuckin’–? “What? No.”

His face fell.

Adam couldn’t hold in his laugh.

He startles both of them with the sound, cutting it off abruptly with a huff, and then breaking into giggles again at the other man’s dumbfounded stare, hugging his middle when a stitch started in his side.

After a long few moments, Moxley chuckles under his breath, ducking his head and crossing his arms with a small smile, mumbling about how they did it in the _good ol' days_ under his breath. Adam forces down the way the laugh burned and tingled pleasantly in his ears.

When they both had fallen silent, he couldn’t hold back his soft sigh.

“So?”

He lifts his head. “Huh?”

“Your name.”

“My name?”

The other man was staring back up at the night sky when he looks back over at him. “Yeah. Names are important. They’re… who you are.”

“That’s a bit too deep for four AM, personally.”

Moxley snaps to attention, glancing at him before quickly darting his gaze away and itching at his jaw. His ears were _pink,_ oh _Lord._ Adam adjusts the towel hanging down his front to hide his wide grin. This side of Moxley was foreign, new territory. Any and all sides of Moxley was new to him, but this one– flickering orange light on gleaming eyelashes and the way his dimples hollow themselves out around his joy, it was raw and unexplored.

He had no idea who this man was, and it was thrilling, in a strange way. A foreign, twisted feeling of satisfaction took root in him. He wanted to see every version of that smile, he thinks distantly. He wants to see every shade of emotion and joy on that face. He wants to see the way every kind of light tinted those eyes.

Adam barely pulls himself out of his stupor to realize he’s been staring and that Moxley’s actually talking.

“–ust… y’called me Moxley. ’M not Jon or Mox or whatever, to you I’m just… just Moxley,” he says, a little defeated.

“Uh,” Adam blinks dumbly, lost for all intents and purposes, “yeah? Why, aren’t you?”

Moxley let his head fall, fingers playing over his lips, eyes distant. “I am. I’m… Jon Moxley. But when people look at me, they see ghosts. They see Dean Ambrose, or worse, the Jon Moxley that came before ‘im. I keep _tryin’_ to… I keep _hopin’…”_ He fell silent, shadow hiding his face from his sight. 

Well, he doesn’t really know what to say to that. “Damn, that shit sucks. Sorry.”

The other man laughs, deep and low in his throat, casting his gaze to him once more. “Yeah, yeah, it… it does. But you got me in a way nobody has with jus’ one introduction, cowboy. I don’t expect it to be reciprocated, but–”

A short honk. A car pulling up with a tired driver leaning out a rolled-down window. “Jon Moxley?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he hopped to his feet with a huff and glanced back at him. “Hey, you need a ride, Page?”

“Nah, nah,” he says, wetting his tongue. “Nah. I’m good. You, uh…”

He neatly sidesteps Adam’s half-hearted rambling. “You get to the hotel safe, alright?”

Adam stared for a long moment.

“Sorry,” Moxley says, eyes gleaming with something Adam can’t place. “I guess my tongue is as loose as yours tonight. I’ll see you around, cowboy.”

Some part of him blooms, grows high in his chest, steals his breath with the space it suddenly occupies, and he can only nod quickly in response. Moxley tilts his head for a short moment before– oh, a smile. Something crooked and small, but real in the way those eyes soften around it.

It’s only when the lights of the car are finally out of sight and the light above him shorts out does he reach up and feel his lips for the giddy smile still pulled across them. He hadn’t even realized it. And Moxley had smiled back.

Sitting in the dark, Adam smiles wider.

The future of wrestling, Jon Moxley. The man who would change the world, who crawled out of hell to do so. Page was… jealous? Envious? No, nothing like that, more…

Relieved. 

Page might be a blip on the history of wrestling, but walking legend Jon Moxley? He was alright. He was _good,_ battle-scarred and a little roughed up, cracks haphazardly yet firmly sealed.

_Jon_ was good. 

He lets himself relish in the feeling, that joy, his own smile until it slowly begins to dim, face burning, and he finally calls a ride.

* * *

The driver is quiet. The car is a low rumbling. Adam leans his head against the window. 

He… has a bottle of _something_ back in his room, he remembers. Should he break into it tonight? He needs some kind of aid if he wanted to try and get any rest tonight, but on the other hand, Moxley’s words dig like barbs into his chest.

Still, he considers the bottle he remembers throwing onto the couch in passing—

—Marty’s eyes are so, so sad. His hands are cold-sweat-clammy when they cup his face. _I’m sorry,_ he says into the corner of his mouth. Adam tries to chase after him, but the Brit gives him a bittersweet smile, gives the corner of his mouth and his cheek a peck each, drags his nails lightly through his beard as he goes.

Adam calls his name. He says the joke isn’t funny. He snarls after him, spitting venom and razor bladed words between grit teeth. He demands a price to make him stay. He begs for an answer, any answer at all.

Marty doesn’t look back—

—He doesn’t want to, but the silence only comes when he’s properly trashed. The sense of reward and pleasure as heat burns to life in his gut with enough of it is all he needs. It just helps that it gives him dreamless sleep afterward.

It makes things easier. Both for himself and for others. Nobody likes a drunk. He doesn’t like himself either. That’s okay.

It’s so much easier just _letting go._ He’s spent years trying to hold everything together, hold everyone together, dragging out their collective death for as long as he could. He spent years holding pressure to a fatal stab they’d brought onto themselves—

—Chase’s eyes squint with an unreadable emotion when they meet his. His fingers falling from Adam’s belt loops force his heart into his throat. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Chase doesn’t smile as he studies his face, stares for a few seconds, and stands.

Chase says something Adam can’t make out past the white noise in his ears, receives shouting from the others in return, and stalks to the door. He opens it threateningly, but the shouting doesn’t lessen. He looks over the room once before leaving with a wall-shaking slam.

His eyes skim over Adam without really seeing. He doesn’t look at him at all as he leaves—

—Nobody else wanted to change. Nobody ever wants to change. That was the thing, with people like them, all so bull-headed and hot-blooded. It’s just easier for Adam to swap masks out. Assimilate a new role.

It’s so much easier for them to walk it off. Adam can’t do this anymore. He can't carry much more on his back, it's getting too heavy. His very bones beg for rest. He can't walk it off. It's never been that simple.

It’s so much easier to sit back and watch it all fall apart in your lap. It’s not like anyone cares enough to realize before it’s too late. It’s not like anyone cares.

The only one who cared was himself. He’s given away so much, there’s nothing left for himself. There's nothing left _of_ himself. All he can remember is sacrifice and being what everyone else needs him to be, and being nothing for himself.

It’s so much easier to care for others than it is to care for yourself after all.

It’s so much easier to be the uncaring tool, the right hand. They don’t have to think. They can just sleepwalk through the motions. He's never had the privilege. They can bite their tongues but—

—Cody’s expression is completely and totally blank. His mouth is a thin, flat line. His eyes are empty as they flicker up at movement, and his face suddenly animates, bright smile, brighter eyes, rosy cheeks. His smile twists sideways into a curled-lip, sneering smirk. His eyes darken. He flicks the ashes of his cigar across the floor, stomping the embers out with a sharp twist of his heel. 

He realizes Adam is watching, faintly stunned at the strobe of expression, and he visibly relaxes. 

Cody’s face softens even as those eyes only lighten a fraction. A gloved hand grips his jaw lightly, traces his jawline back until leather fingers tangle gently in the curls at the base of his neck. 

He can’t tell if Cody sees too much of him or nothing at all in the way those eyes stare into his own before glazing over a bit, listing down just a little too far to imitate eye contact. 

Adam pretends he doesn’t notice, as he always does.

Adam has his orders. Cody sees himself out—

—The first sip brings a sickening joy, a feeling of horror and disgust and _fear,_ so he throws back the rest of the drink just to hear the silence descend upon the room when his glass clinks against the tabletop.

(When did he get into the hotel? His room? It doesn’t matter, not really, but–?)

The hangover from the previous night seems to disappear before any of the alcohol can even hit his stomach, but he’s already throwing back another half of a glass, reaching shakily for the bottle.

No matter how much he drinks, he can’t make the worst of the pain go away, and the irony makes him want to drink some more, so he does. The shakes only leave for a few hours before they return twice as bad, and he can feel tremors ripple beneath his skin. Already, he can feel his head wound begin to fade with the rest of everything else.

One, two. Three. Four, five, he loses count and his hands are too unsteady to get it all in either of the glasses without taking too long, so he clutches the bottleneck as tight as he can, just in case, and drinks straight from it.

It’s not enough like it usually is, he realizes not too long afterward.

It’s not enough. It’s always enough until it isn’t. It’s always him, not enough. He’s not enough. It’s not enough, it never is. He’s not enough, he’s not enough, it has to be _him,_ and no matter what he tries, he can’t bleed it out, can’t sweat it out, can’t cut or tear or poison it out of himself. He can’t fill himself with alcohol and drink it out of himself.

He wants to wash the blood from his skin. He wants to wash away every touch, every hit, every tag from his hands, shoulders, back, sides, every inch of him. 

He wants _out, out, out,_ but that's not new, and there's nothing he can do as usual.

His knees are too shaky for a shower, but there’s an itch in his spine, in his very bones that tells him to run, run, run until he’s in a safe place he knows he’ll never reach, until he’s miles and miles from the sins that never rest within him. 

He’ll collapse in the shower if he stands. If he falls, if he lets his knees give out, he won’t be able to get up. But if he runs, runs, runs, he won’t be able to stop until his body physically gives out.

He needs to do something, right now, right now, right now, or else. It’s all every ounce of him screams at him, that he needs to do something. He needs to move, he needs– he needs–

(He needs to stop. He needs to sleep. He needs to put the bottle down and sober up. He needs–)

But he has debts to pay and promises to keep. He needs to stay here because leaving the room is a very bad idea and he’ll be getting texts soon about future matches and- _fuck it._

He needs to run a bath.

He enters the bathroom with minimal swaying he _mostly_ corrects and—

—there's a hand around his neck.

It’s vice, clammy palm and shaking fingers. He can’t breathe. There’s a sharp pain on the back of his neck as blunt nails pierce the skin and sticky blood trickles quickly to wet his neck with sudden cold sweat. He can’t breathe.

The bed beneath him is solid and hard, his own blood, sweat, tears all mingling together to wet the sheets beneath him that fold soothingly but– the hands don’t slip or falter even when he finally forces his numb limbs to cooperate and dig into the wrist at his throat.

He can’t breathe, but the pieces click together painfully slow, and when he pans his eyes up to follow the arm of his attacker, he’s not too surprised.

He’s strangling himself. He’s killing himself, his own twin has a hand around his neck and— he can’t breathe. 

He chokes, but his own fingers are slow and unresponsive, barely scraping the hand pinning him down, the thumb dragging down and then mercilessly into the hollow of his own throat. He can hardly choke out a wheeze.

His eyes list to the side. The room is horribly familiar. He can’t breathe.

He’s in Joey Ryan’s room. 

Hangman is blank-faced and unaffected when he reaches for the telephone set, which is the real surprise. He can’t breathe, but Adam vividly recalled that when he did it, well, he remembered the way his face had twisted into a painful grimace, the way his throat burned and his eyes even more so. He remembered it every day of his life since.

(Huh. He can’t breathe, can he?)

Hangman raised the phone–

(Adam can’t- Adam can’t breathe.)

–high above his head–

(He– he can’t breathe. He can’t—)

–drove it hard into Adam’s cheekbone.

He can’t breathe. The outer plastic shatters over his face; he only has eyes for the phone, though, and watches blankly with one eye as it's lifted before driving down once more, now into his temple. He can’t breathe. 

A slow creeping finally seemed to register on the edges of his vision, but it had already swallowed so much of him he can’t muster up enough energy to feel truly alarmed. What little energy he had left is fizzying out along with it. 

It doesn't matter. Nothing did.

(wait.)

(hey, wait.)

Adam let his tired, numb hands fall back to the bed. His nails had made no impact anyway.

(uh.)

(normally this is the part where you say hi back.)

Adam let his eyes skim past his own empty mirror reflection to the ceiling as the phone was lifted high into the air, tilted at just the right angle he remembers Joey–

(drunk mess doesn’t suit you.)

(no. i’ll admit, you wear it a lot better than most i’ve met, but with you…)

The fall of it is frightening. Adam wonders what Joey felt, watching this. He wonders what death is—

(it’s you.)

–Adam wakes up.

Water distorts the ceiling. 

His curls float lazily in a curtain around him. 

The bottom of the bathtub is firm and unyielding beneath him. It’s easy to come-to slowly. Small flecks and fragments shimmer on the surface as they catch the light.

Silence. Complete and utter silence.

It’s peaceful. Everything, everyone, is quiet. For once.

It’s so much easier to lay there, letting the slow sway of the water rock him back and forth gently.

It’s peaceful. He’s tired. He can’t breathe.

(It’s so much easier to let go, Adam. It’s so much easier, not breathing, isn’t it Adam?)

Wait. 

Wait, _what?_

He can’t _b_ — _?_

Adam surges up and out, gagging on lungfuls of water.

He coughs and chokes, body pushing and pulling the water into his lungs in a desperate bid that he might pull in air with one of his heaves. Panic explodes in his white-hot chest, that same fuzziness clouding his vision, darkness swallowing his eyesight, and for a moment, he thinks he blacks out.

All he knows is one moment he’s choking, the next there’s nothingness, the kind of peace that comes with sleep after a chaotic day, and then he’s slowly blinking spots from his eyes to tacky tile and one of the ugliest floor rugs he’s ever seen in his life, made worse by his mess. 

His tongue hurts again. He pries it from between his teeth, saliva, bile, water spilling free with it to dampen the rug further.

He’d thrown himself up and over the side, his arms loosely hanging over the edge, his teeth grit against his chin angled awkwardly atop the lip of the tub.

His lungs burn when he tries for a deep breath, his throat worse off, and he chokes again, but the gasp afterward is as thrill-inducing as whiskey going down slow. Even worse is the aches that rebound, acid up his throat, old rum on his teeth.

Tenderly, clumsily, he twists his lower half to straighten out in the sloshing water, taking a slower breath. His heart still pounds furiously in his chest, a sharp rhythm that beats heatedly beneath his palm when he rests it.

He blinks liquid hard from his eyes, wipes at his face with his other hand and studies the room.

The floor is a mess, flooded with most of the bathwater, a mess of multiple bodily fluids, miscellaneous soaps, something crimson. The corner of the sink is dark and dripping and he carefully tracks the warm liquid soaking his face up to the source of his headache.

It’s a long gash, he jerks his fingers away the instant he finds the corner, returning only to lightly edge the inflamed swelling. He'd hit the counter at the exact same spot he'd been chaired tonight. _Fuck._

He pulls his hand away when he still feels pain, and– oh.

His entire hand comes away crimson, too much, and when he squints and tilts his head, he can see shards of glass. None of them appear to be in his palm anymore, mostly just loosely stuck to his skin by water-dampened dried blood, but small fragments float atop the water.

He leans a little to see out the cracked door, and a broken bottle rests on the floor, shattered bottleneck.

Adam thinks that maybe the bath was a bad idea.

* * *

The medic is barely set up when he raps his knuckles hesitantly against the door, peeking around the edge of the door.

“Oh! Hangman, right?”

“Page,” he corrects half-heartedly.

“Page, then. What can I do you for?”

He stepped in, closing the door behind him and straightening the wrinkles in his shirt. “I, uh…”

Her eyes flit up and widened. “Wait, what the hell happened to-”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he spat out quickly, keeping his voice carefully low. “I hit my head really hard last night, and I wanted to get it checked out.”

“Why didn’t you get any help last night?” Her own volume drops as she gestures to the table across the room, quickly arranging supplies and throwing gloves on.

“Uh,” he tries, maneuvering gently. “I, uh…” _didn’t want to be a problem._

_“I…” didn’t want to cause trouble._

_“I…” didn’t want to be-_

“It’s okay,” she says. He blinks in alarm as she crosses the room in two neat strides, peels back the gauze and tape, dabs something over the cut without pause. “You don’t have to answer. I’m sorry for asking. I’m sorry for pushing.”

_“No!”_ He can’t restrain his shout, tightening his grip on the table's edge and quickly jerking his injured hand away. "No, no, sorry, just… I just needed to leave, last night.”

She glances at him and back to his forehead. “Just tell me, did it happen during your match last night or afterward? I wasn’t on call, but I heard you refused medical help."

_(A horrified face, wide eyes stare back at him, and for a moment–_

_(_ –he’s staring at Kenny from New Japan, begging for help, reaching for him. For a moment he’s staring at Marty’s terrified expression, jerking away from him sharply. For a moment he’s staring at the Bucks as they jump when he steps forward, but it’s not them, it’s– _)_

_(The crowd is screaming. He can't hear anything but white noise and wailing.)_

_(Something drips into his eyes and he blinks hard, stumbling back as though struck. Was he just- was he spat on? He wasn’t that sweaty–)_

_(He raises his fingers, drags the tips through the hot, sticky liquid pouring from his forehead. They come back crimson.)_

_(Oh. He_ had _been struck.)_

_(He looks up again.)_

_(The steel chair falls without a sound from loose hands.)_

Her voice softens. “I just want to get a date on this for the concussion test. Yes or no will do.”

“Yes. I hit my head pretty hard a second time after the match, though.”

“... Alright. Anyway, say thanks to Moxley, next time you see him. He ratted you out this morning, so I made sure to have everything prepped in case you found your way back in here.”

“Moxley?” He _what?_

She presses a little too hard with the wipe, apologizing under her breath. “Yeah. Said he saw you bloodied up last night and called in early this morning.”

Page thought back to last night and came up blank. Wait, no.

_(He took a deep breath, swallowed the fresh trickle of copper back, and rests his forearms against the seat, carefully twitching his toes, rolling his ankles, bending his knees in slow flexes until the uncomfortable, tingling lack of blood flow is mostly over with and he slowly stands on shaky legs, wiping his mouth of the back of his wrist tape.)_

_(Moxley’s eyes dart from his wrist tape to his mouth to his eyes, and then sharply away when he realized Page was staring back.)_

Fuck.

“Please don’t go kill him,” she sighs, finally setting down the wipes. “He was right to call it in. Now hold still, I– wait, what the _fuck_ happened to your hand? You didn’t think to start with that?”

“Uh.” Shit. He’d clenched his hand into a fist and now it bled in small rivulets down his fingers. “I didn’t think it was… as important?”

“..."

* * *

It’s a mild concussion. His hand would be healed in two weeks, maybe one and a half depending on his body's agreeability. Mostly superficial.

No wrestling. No drinking. No painkillers.

The state of his liver was atrocious. The painkillers, specifically acetaminophen, would fuck it up beyond repair. It could mean surgery.

He swears, hand to his heart, and sneaks his way back to the locker room successfully. 

Her glare is like his mother's– disappointed, incredulous, and quietly furious, so he makes his way as quickly as he dared and avoids all possible trouble by taking a longer route around the main office entirely.

The Elite wasn't good for his health. Starting today, he was simply going to dodge all of them but Kenny. Out of sight, out of mind. They couldn't rope him back in if they couldn't get a hold of him, right?

* * *

He lasts one day.

* * *

"Page!"

God _fucking_ damnit.

"Hangman! Hey!"

"Nick," he answers tiredly as the Buck finally manages to squeeze out from between an amused Joey Janela and a sleeping Luchasaurus who blocked the path, the dinosaur resting half on top of the bad boy despite both standing. 

Most of the wrestlers stood by the door or simply sat around the room in thick clusters. The counters, the floor, bean bags, in a _sleeping_ bag– Jungle Boy had claimed the eight-foot stack of chairs as his own and had promptly passed out at the top leaving the common room to chaos. 

The only attempt to take one out from the middle of the stack had made it tip and had Marko _shrieking_ as the Boy tilted with it, and nobody had tried for a seat since.

Page had been lucky enough to simply nudge Cassidy into rolling over where he was splayed across the couch and had quickly pacified him into letting him sit, only condition being that he throws his legs into his lap, with the addition of a blanket and a couch pillow.

Cassidy had, presumably, stared at him until Page had tucked the blanket in around him, and hadn’t moved an inch from the instant his head hit the pillow. 

Fair enough, he supposed. He wasn’t going to argue. He had an entire couch cushion to himself and no match tonight due to his injuries, and no one could ask anything of him after the medic found him cornered by a few insistent journalists and reporters. He wasn't quite sure what there was to say after Sunday, so he simply said nothing at all. 

Then again, not even ten minutes after Janela had finally gotten off his feet, satisfied with Page’s french braid, chaos had erupted across the common room over a locker room fantasy hockey fight. He's just glad nobody else had demanded anything from him yet. 

Until now. It’s at least a little funny watching Nick struggle, trapped between Luchasaurus and Janela as they began getting rowdy about the dinosaur being awoken.

Nick is visibly winded when he manages to stumble out. "Hey, dude, where've you been? We've been–" He takes a moment to lean forward on his knees and catch his breath.

Page sighs to himself, but reaches forward to guide him into the spot between himself and the couch arm anyway. He wedged himself in awkwardly, peering around him to glance at Cassidy, shoes brushing Nick’s thighs. 

He inhales his heavy sigh and prays for patience. “Don’t mind him. What didya need?”

“Oh! I guess…” Nick ducked his head, fumbling with the cuffs of his jacket. “I’m worried about Matt?”

Oh boy. “What happened now?”

“It’s nothing! Just… Matt won’t talk to me.” Okay, so he was being his usual fifth grade self, but now was including his brother with everyone else. “I think it’s… your beef. I think something’s wrong, but I also feel like I’m worrying too much?” The end upturns into a question.

“He’s your brother,” he leans back, throwing an arm over the back of the couch behind him, “you’ll always worry, just as he always worries for you. I know it might be foreign, but it’s called caring about other people.”

Nick finally relaxes, rolling his shoulders and leaning back into the touch with a heavy sigh of his own. _“Yeah, yeah,_ you’re _so very funny._ The funniest guy I know. Where’d you pick up the sense of humor, a Dollar Tree bargain bin?”

“Half off, actually, at Target for the low, low price of pricelessness.”

The smaller man snorts, smacking his leg. “I’m trying to be serious, you dork.”

“Right, back on topic. Matt bein’ an asshole.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry- _distinguished asshat.”_

_“Adam!”_

Adam couldn’t contain his laugh, leaning into the other self-indulgently and soaking up the heat and peppermint-aftershave-chocolate that was always _Nick_. His voice drops low as he reaches up to comb at his hair with his fingers, pulling it over a shoulder and playing with his split ends.

“It’s just _frustrating._ We’ve fought before, obviously, but now he won’t even listen! It’s driving me nuts, that he won’t even hear me out. Especially when…” 

Page leans his own head back, closing his eyes. “Do you remember when you were poisoned?”

“What? Uh, at the time? Vaguely.”

“Matt was… so, so _scared,_ if you would believe it.”

_“What?”_ He can feel Nick’s incredulous stare. “No fucking way. You’re joking. He never said anything.”

He hums low in his throat, recalling. “Yeah, he called me before you’d been admitted to the hospital. He was puttin’ on a brave face for you b’cause you were bein’ stubborn at the time.”

_“Yeah, it’s really weird. I’ve seen Nick sick before, even have a stomach bug kinda like this, but this is way worse,”_ he’d said, _“It’s really weird. Nick doesn’t want to go, but I’m thinking of taking him to the hospital. It shouldn’t be anything. It shouldn't be this bad if it's just a stomach bug from travel.”_

He could faintly hear Nick’s croaky _making a big deal out of nothing_ before Matt cut it off with a sharp _you’re an idiot and this is bad, you’re going to the hospital if I have to superkick you there, you damn five-year-old!_

_“Matt,”_ he’d spoken up, _“Tell Nick you’ll be right back and head out of the room, okay?”_

_“I’m just... Really– really worried I guess,”_ he had whispered through the connection, the sound of a door closing on the other line.

_“Hey, Hey, Nick is going to be fine. He probably caught something nasty, and the doctor will help him kick it, make sure nothing’s up,”_ he'd said, putting a softer, more soothing inflection in his voice.

_“What if something’s wrong? I’ve never seen something this bad, especially with him! Nick has an immune system of steel! What if something bad’s wrong with him? He’s my brother, Adam! He means everything to me,”_ Matt’s voice jumped in volume and distress, _“What if–”_

_“Yeah, what if. It’s just a_ what if, _Matt. He’s going to be okay. Keep a level head for him, alright? You can have the doctor run as many tests as you think he needs, and he’ll get help. Best case, you were worried for nothing, worst case, it’s bad and you got him to the hospital for treatment because you were rightfully paranoid.”_

Matt had been quiet for a few moments.

_“Matt?”_ He’d prompted gently.

_“Yeah,”_ he said wearily a few moments later, sighing slowly into the phone, _“You’re right. I’m just… scared. I want to be strong for him, but he… looks so bad, Adam. I’ve never seen him so bad, he’s in a lot of pain,”_ he paused, _“and with all this drama with Cole and Kenny… I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help. I never do. He’s the smart one of us, he’s the brains. He’s the one that… I love him, I love my baby brother so much, Adam, I don’t think–"_

_“Okay, here’s how this’s gonna go,”_ he'd cut in, putting confidence and surety into his tone now, _“You’re gonna take Nick to the hospital, we’re gonna figure out what’s wrong, and get him help. I'll keep Kenny and Cole occupied.”_

He could feel his heart break in time with Matt’s voice crack, _“...I’m really worried for him, Adam.”_

_“I know. It’s okay, Nick will be okay. As soon as Nick is okay, as soon as he feels better, we can all go out. How about that? We can get Kenny, Cody, maybe even Marty, and all of us can go out for something to eat.”_

He'd felt Matt’s slight smile through the phone, _“Yeah? That sounds... great. Thanks for talking me through this... I didn’t mean to unload on you.”_

_“It’s no problem, dude. I got you. Let me know how it goes with Nick, okay?”_

_“Of course,”_ he sounded firmer at that, a little more put together, _“Thanks again, Adam. I’ll call you later.”_

Nick absorbs every word, face blank, staring up at the ceiling. It takes a few seconds before he speaks.

“I hate him.”

Page snorts. “Yeah, he’s a bit of an idiot. But…” He waits for Nick to glance back over at him, “he’s an idiot who loves you. You just gotta remind him you’re in it together, y’know? He just… worries. He thinks he knows better.”

“He _doesn’t!”_ He threw his arms up, letting them fall back in his lap with an exasperated groan.

“Well, I guess that’s always been your job, hasn’t it? Taking him down a few notches? He’s a bit of a lowkey control freak, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Nick goes silent, turning to look at him. “Listen, I’m really sorry.”

Page blinks an eye open, peering at him. “Huh? What for?”

“I know after… last night… you probably don’t want anything to do with us. And here I am, coming here to complain. I know-”

“Nick, I’m gonna say it once. It’s fine. You’re my friend, dude.”

“Even after–?”

“That’s,” Page purses his lips for a moment, tonguing the back of his teeth, “between me and him. Don’t worry about it, okay? I’m breaking off from the Elite but that doesn’t change anything between us, unless you want it to.”

Nick was quiet. "You're a good guy, Page. I'm sorry it's… I'm sorry it's turning out like this."

Page smiles, just a little. Nick understood a lot better than the others. "Yeah. I'm sorry too. Thank you."

"Listen man, I hate to ask this, but Kenny and Matt have been going at it, and I was hoping…"

Oh no. "Get at it, Nick."

"I was hoping you could come cool off Kenny?" He spits out quickly. "They keep fighting and every time I try and de-escalate it they act like I'm picking a side."

He tries to hold back his disbelief. "And you'd think _I_ would help that? I'm only gonna make it worse, Nick."

"Kenny listens to you," he insists, eyes wide. Was this how he got Matt to do what he wanted? "He won't listen to me. Not in the same way. Please?"

"Nick…" This was one of the worst ideas he's ever heard.

"Please? Page, please? I swear it'll stop."

"... Fuck me," he hisses under his breath, meeting his gaze and sitting up to lean against his knees. "Fine! Fine."

"Page, listen, just… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked this of you, and I'm kind of fucking this up with you, and–"

"It's fine," he says, even though it's kind of not. He stands up anyway, carefully laying Cassidy's legs in his seat and rolling his neck. The fight parts for his glance and _pardon_ 's.

"No, it's not, not really," Nick argues, struggling to keep with his sudden long strides. They exit the room without much fuss, and he takes the lead without any more preamble.

The walk is quick and sharp paced, a five to ten-minute walk made into a short three minute one, with the younger Jackson glancing over at him every few moments. 

Page just wants this to be over. He honestly didn't think whatever argument they had would last long once he walked in, but he didn't want to have the resulting chaos instead. Nick asking this of him... it was–

"Hey, hold on," Nick stops him, just as he reaches for the door handle. He glances at him in question but stays quiet when he visibly struggles with his words.

"Just… thanks, Page. I know you've been going through a lot, we all do, and a lot of it is our fault in some way or another, we're just… having a hard time coming to terms with you leaving. Thanks for sticking around as much as you are."

The shouting increases inside, but Page can't help but stare at him. "Nick…"

"Sorry, sorry, we can head in now," he says, glancing away as his ears lit up a cherry red.

"You're always welcome, Nick. Thanks for… everything."

Nick smiled at the floor, itching at his stubble, and Page took one last deep breath before opening the door.

"Oh _great,_ it's the man of the hour!" Matt hollers, Kenny echoing with a startled _Adam?_

"Matt," he greets curtly, skimming over him to meet Kenny's eyes. "Kenny. Heard there was... arguin'."

"Matt is being unreasonable," Kenny sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and crossing his arms over his chest. "Downright _cranky."_

_"Cranky!"_ The other man wails. "I'm _cranky_ for being upset that our wayward cowboy has gone off the deep end! I'm cranky for being _upset!_ For trying to _help!"_

“I’ve been havin’ a rough time lately,” he sneers, immediately on the defensive, crinkling his nose at him. _“Pardon me,_ o great Matt Jackson! I don’t see you jumpin’ to help out, so sit down and shut up.”

"You're so wrapped up in your own _pity party_ after losing to Chris that you're pushing the rest of us away! We've _always_ supported you! We’ve _always_ been there for you! But you’ve been spiraling for _no goddamn reason_ after _one_ defeat! And all you do is push us away when we try and help!”

“Matt!” Kenny hisses, but Matt shrugs off his hand with an aggressive roll, squaring his shoulders.

“You left _us!_ If you would just come back, Nick, Kenny, Cody, _me_ –”

"After the hot fuckin' mess the other night?" He snaps, a steel chair’s reflection burning behind his eyes. "No thank you!"

Kenny steps firmly into the lull in the conversation. “I know they fucked up, you shouldn’t have gotten caught up in it–” 

“What does that mean?” Matt demands, gesturing violently towards him as he whirled on Kenny, “This never wouldn’ve happened if he just _stayed_ and quit playing at–”

Page shoves his arm away, snapping, “ _playing?_ I ain’t playin’ at nothin’ with you! This never woulda happened if you weren’t so damn clingy! I ain’t your toy, I ain’t your plaything, an' I _certainly_ don’t belong to you–”

“You don’t have to act like we mean nothing to you, Hangman! Your tough guy act is just that! An _act!_ They _did_ fuck up, but people do that! If you wanted some space, you could’ve asked, but you don’t have to act so ungrateful for everything–” Matt reached forward despite his bristling, taking his wrist.

"Ungrateful?" The room falls silent. “I’m sorry– _ungrateful?_ I don't want you to get involved because if you _take care of it for me,_ it'll just be another bullet point on the list of bullshit you'll lord over me! You’ll start another civil war with the fuckin’ _Nightmare Collective_ of all families, and it’ll be on _me_ for taking the steel chair to the head that started it! It'll be _my fault_ that AEW collapses because it's biggest players have a several-million-dollar bitch fight!

"Don't pretend you _care,_ Matt Jackson! Say whatever the fuck you want, do whatever the fuck you wanna do, but you don't get to play with me like that!" Page bares his teeth, wrenching his arm away. "Not anymore!"

"Adam–"

His vision blurs in how fast he storms forward and takes Jackson by the front of his shirt.

_"Don't fuckin' call me that."_

The dead silence lasted only a few seconds before Omega spoke up, voice soft and tone tight. "Alright. A– Page, go ahead and put him down, okay?"

Hangman lets himself indulge in the feeling of Jackson’s shirt tightening in his fists, threads straining, in the furious blank mask of his face but the turbulent light that crashed and swirled behind his eyes.

“Page-”

Hangman drops him and he stumbles away on uneven legs, watching him warily. He didn’t even stop to look at the other two, even as Omega shifted in his peripheral. Matt betrays no emotion on his face, simply ducks his head. 

He walks casually to the door, stopping when his hand reaches the handle.

"Nick.”

"I didn’t think–” _no, you fucking didn’t,_ “I’m sorry.”

"... Me too. I'll see you around."

Nick brightened, just a fraction out of the corner of his eye. "Y-Yeah! Yeah, that'd be–"

The door slammed shut behind him, sealing the rest in the room.

* * *

It was like blinking. One second he was throwing the door closed and the next he was in a stairwell, watching Jon Moxley get the shit beat out of him. Jesus fuckin' Christ, today was one disaster after another.

“–ell, Mox-boy? How’s that?”

A hard right hook, a steel-toed boot driving inwards and upwards. Moxley shrieks.

Blood sprays with a sickening splatter. It’s slow, thin stream brushes the toe of his own boot.

There’s… blood on his boot.

The door slams shut behind him with a deafening echo. Moxley made a sound akin to a wounded animal, a horrible pained howl that twisted into a snarl of breath when another knee drove upwards into his stomach.

Hager hums, glancing over his shoulder when Santana and Ortiz freeze in place. Moxley bares his teeth, lip curled, but doesn’t even glance up.

“Get the fuck out of here, hick.”

(There’s blood on his boot.)

Hangman doesn’t blink.

He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t frown. He doesn’t change any feature of his relaxed expression. He simply slides his eyes from Moxley’s furious thrashing to Hager’s lazy half-slouch.

“What did you just call me?”

Hager blinks slowly. “You heard me.”

Hangman simply stares back. 

Hager slowly straightens, turning to properly face him as Santana and Ortiz stop to watch, still keeping Moxley tight in their grapple as his spitting quiets down.

Hangman's voice reverberates oddly in the stairwell. “I won’t repeat myself, so I suggest you listen up. Drop him, get the fuck out, and don’t come back.”

Santana flushes with indignation. “Excuse me?”

Hangman doesn't even glance his way. “You’re excused.”

“What,” Ortiz scoffs, cocking his head, “did the chair knock a few screws loose? You askin’ for a–”

Hager chuckles, deep in his chest, and they fall silent. The larger man’s lips twitch just a little even as his eyes don’t move from Hangman’s own, still dark and unamused.

“You’re very funny,” he says, stepping slowly towards him, “for a cowboy. Quite the facade you play at. Why don’t you run along, and we’ll pretend you walked on by?” It’s not a question.

Hangman doesn’t move an inch. He forces himself to breathe when it stutters in his chest. “That’s the longest I’ve heard you speak in one breath, Junior. Have you been taking lessons?”

Hager sighs, a little forlorn, a little mockingly, wrapping a massive hand around his neck with one simple snatch. A rough thumb swiped slowly over his Adam’s apple. “A sharp tongue, for a boy-king. Where are your keepers, little prince? Do they know their sheep has wandered so far from their crook?”

Hangman doesn't gulp, simply tilts his head back enough to meet his eyes before locking his head in place even as Hager's thumb dug into the underside of his jaw.

“They’ve eased their foot off my neck,” he says simply. “And yours?”

The larger man's lip twitches as he slowly tilts his head.

“Oh,” he says softly, “you know.”

Silence descends hesitantly, heavily, but true. Santana stirs angrily, riled up but cautious in his peripheral vision. Ortiz is too, they both can smell the blood in the water even if they don’t know quite where or what the danger was.

Moxley has his head perked, full attention on the both of them, but not physically alert enough to break the delicate balance between the five of them.

Hangman’s eyes don’t leave Hager’s. Hager’s eyes don’t leave Hangman’s. For a long moment, Hager flexes each finger around the back of his neck. 

For a long moment, he raises his own hand, draws his fingernails up Hager’s own and over his cheek until he’s cradling his face in his palm.

Goosebumps follow his trail, and a shiver breaks out over Hager’s skin, his eyelid fluttering close under Hangman’s thumb as he rests it gently in the socket.

It is his right eye. He applies the lightest pressure as Hager instinctively tightens his grasp.

_Pull the trigger, judge, jury, executioner. Hang ‘em all up and watch ‘em all fall. Just a squeeze, and they’ll flee like a flock of startled birds._

Hager stares down at him, very quiet and very still, and then smiles. It's barely a smile, more of a heavy leer full of bared teeth, but softens a little as he releases Hangman's neck.

“The wolf in sheep’s clothing bares his fangs at long last. How does it feel, princeling, to be free?”

Hangman stares. He blinks very, very slowly. “Why don’t you run along,” he applies a soft pressure beneath his thumb, digging each individual fingernail into the side of his jaw one by one, “and we’ll pretend you walked on by?”

Hager’s smile widens imperceptibly, tooth, gums and all, until he can feel the muscles strain around his eye socket, coiling tight under his skin single eye open wide. “Oh, praise whatever pitiful gods are out there, you’ve got a pair of real, bonafide steel cojones on you, huh? You’re no boy-king. You’re one of those incendiary types!”

Hangman stares, locking his fingers. Even so, Hager takes his thumb, twists it with a sharp yank that makes him bite back a howl, and plucks each of his nails out of his face.

“That should heal in a week,” he observes, still horribly delighted even as the smile mellows out into a small, half-lid grin. “Come see me. I’d love to burn you out, little prince.”

Santana and Ortiz make noises of disapproval when he clicks his tongue, but throw Moxley to the ground with one last knee to the stomach and a hard shove, following at the giant's heels as he swivels on them and exits the well with sharp, efficient strides.

Hangman only let his shoulders relax after the walls and reverberations settled from the final slam of the door.

The silence is deafening, broken only by Moxley’s soft wheezing and shifting as he sat up and immediately leaned back into the wall.

“What in the actual goddamn fuck was all _that?”_

Page ran his clammy hands down his sweaty face a few times, rubbing some life back into him and steadying his breathing. His thumb was– dislocated? He doesn't know, but as the adrenaline begins to waver and his racing heart slows down, he can feel the exhaustion, pain, and heat begin to circle him.

(There’s blood on his boot.)

He wants to scream, or maybe cry. Or maybe just sleep. Or maybe just _stop,_ but this isn’t the place for that, so he settles for squinting at Moxley in thinly-veiled despair. How the _fuck_ was he supposed to know?

Moxley exhales heavily, propping up his legs and throwing his arms casually over his knees. If he hadn’t seen him have the shit beat out of him, he would’ve thought the older man was simply vibing on the floor.

“Whatever,” Moxley says tiredly. “I’m too fucking old for this shit.”

“You’re only like, thirty-five,” Page chokes out, peeling a hand away to look over at him properly.

The thirty-four-year-old threw his hands up in exasperation. “And here I am, a fucked up shoulder, my savior being a fucked up kid having a goddamn mental break, and a jacket with exploded-ketchup-filled pockets. Fuck off, Page.”

He decides to ignore that last point, or at least, agree a _little_ bit, and finally gets his legs to cooperate enough to take him three steps closer and collapse beneath him close enough to lean against the way a foot away. “Why are your pockets full of ketchup?” He chokes out.

“Because I really wanted some ketchup for my fries, and then remembered they have free ketchup packets here and figured it would be cool to steal some for later, and then ran into those assholes,” he answers wearily. Of all the things to return to the building for...

“It’s not stealing if they’re free,” he says, lamely.

Moxley rolls his head over to smirk at him, bloody teeth and raw lips. “It is if you take all of them.”

Adam chokes on a laugh. “You stole an entire _container_ of _ketchup packets?”_

“Impulse steal! It’s mental health or whatever.”

“That’s impulse _buying._ You don’t impulse _steal_ shit, that’s just stealing.”

“Fuck off, no way! You’re lying,” he swears.

“Nah, man,” he giggles, a little hysterical, “that’s just- you just stole all those ketchup packets.”

“Shit. Do you think they’d… take them back or something?”

“Probably not. If they took them, they’d probably throw them out. Might be tampered with or something,” he answers as sagely as he can. “Nobody wants a weird old man’s ketchup packets. Sorry.”

Moxley looks despairingly down at his handful of condiments. “Fuck me. Well- _shit!”_

Page watches in alarm as Moxley suddenly keels forward, clutching his hip and swearing a storm under his breath. “Woah, what the hell? You dyin’ on me, Moxley?”

“That mother _fucker_ Ortiz kneed me in the fucking _kidney, fuck,”_ he snarls, spitting out a mouthful of bloody saliva, wiping furiously at his mouth with the back of his shaking hand.

Oh. Fuck that guy.

_“Fuck that guy!_ Ugh,” Moxley crowed in agreement, tipping off his ass and awkwardly onto his knees, bracing against the floor with a bloody hand.

“Hold it right there, bud,” Adam quickly scoots over, throwing an arm under his front when his arm gives out not a moment later. He throws it over his own shoulders, around his neck, and tucks his own around his waist, lacing his fingers in his belt loop and his thumb around the belt itself even as blood and _ketchup of all things_ smear across his arm. “I gotcha, just breathe.”

“You’re not talkin’ me through labor, asshole– _hrgh! Fuckin' hell–!”_

“Keep the quips f'r when you got the breath t' spit 'em, Moxley, and grab hold,” at the man’s flat look, “unless you wanna sit here an' bleed out in an abandoned stairwell. Not the best way to go, but I’ll respect it.”

“... I fuckin’ hate you,” he says eventually, forcing the bangs plastered to his face away and bracing his arm more securely.

Adam huffs out a quiet one, two, and exhales softly when Moxley goes along with it, only groaning through grit teeth, and they end up on shaky legs but legs beneath them nonetheless.

“But riddle me this, riddler. Why… ’re y’ helpin’ me? I won’t owe you jackshit, you gotta know that much,” those eyes are sharp as a wolf’s, now, the same glint to them Hager had, that Cody had sometimes, “I don’t do debts. I didn’t do anything for you and this thing you’re doin’ for me, I never plan on payin’ it back. I don’t owe you.”

“No,” he agrees, “you don’t, but… You did somethin' for me. Without realizin’.”

Moxley stares at the side of his face for a few seconds before shaking his head as they began the slow trek back to safety, wiping another hand across his mouth as he spat another mouthful of crimson saliva. “An’ what was that, cowboy?”

Adam allows himself a small, hesitant grin, ducking his head. “You asked my name. Now sattle the hell up, it’s a long walk back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He should wake up. He knows, with the weird time perception that dreams have, that it's probably late into the morning. But...
> 
> Adam’s head is in someone’s lap. There are rough fingers smoothing through his hair. His own strum gently at guitar strings, aware enough to map mental notes but otherwise dozing. The sun comes and goes with the spotty shadows of the tree they sit under. The wind sways the flower fields around them as he digs his toes further into the grass and cool dirt.
> 
> He closes his eyes and smiles.
> 
> He can dream a little longer.


End file.
